Our Daily Rhythm

I recently blogged a list of what we are doing in school this semester, and I've had questions about how we accomplish our work, so I thought I'd give blogging about the rhythm of our days a shot.

I have a schedule, complete with times.  It looks like this:

5:00-7:30:  My morning stuff (Bible study, exercise, completing two thoughts in a row,etc.)
7:30-8:00:  Family Bible study
8:00-8:30:  Boys dressed and fed
8:30-10:30:  Read alouds (Sonlight, science, US History)
10:30-11:30:  Math
11:30-12:00:  Grammar
12:00-1:00:  Lunch and Quiet Time
1:00-2:00:  Spelling, Phonics, Writing, Literature Discussion
2:00-2:30:  Latin
2:30-3:00:  Greek
3:00-3:30:  Logic

This is our basic daily schedule.  So far, the only problem I've had with this schedule is trying to get 6 people to follow it.  However, it does give me a framework to follow so I don't sit staring at the books and the boys and decide to take a nap because I don't know what to do.

Luke & Ezekiel are fairly independent.  They do math, Latin, Greek, and some of their writing on their own. I'm more of a discussion facilitator with them now.  Jacob is pretty independent, too, but I do directly teach him more than I do his two older brothers.  Micah and Nicholas have some things they do on their own as well.  However, lest you think they all sit down and work diligently on this independent work, I spend a lot of time saying "Get to work." or "Stop talking...whispering is still talking." or "Don't play with the dog." or "What-in-the-world-are-you-doing-will-you-just-get-to-work-before-I-lose-my-mind!".

A good day typically looks like this:

7:30-8:00:  Family Bible study (this is led by Craig)

8:00-8:45:  Say goodbye to Craig for the day, have the boys get dressed and eat.

8:45-10:15:  Read alouds in the living room (the boys usually do puzzles, draw, or work on single player logic games during this time, or play with our 6 month old puppy Jed).

10:15-10:30: When I'm done reading, I send the boys down to the schoolroom start on math (older 3) or independent work (younger 2).  I take a few minutes to recover from reading.  (This is where issues start to crop up with the schedule)

10:30-11:45:  I go down to the schoolroom and give Jacob his math lesson (he watches the DIVE cd before I go over his lesson).  Luke, Ezekiel, Jacob, and Micah all take piano, so about this time I start sending them upstairs to practice (some have to practice after lunch).  Then I pull Micah or Nicholas over to my desk and go through their work with them.  I do math, logic, and phonics with Nicholas, and math, writing, and logic with Micah.  I can usually go until 11:45 before my patience is low, so about that time I go upstairs to make lunch.

12:00-1:15:  Lunch and quiet time.  The boys take their lunch to the playroom and play quietly or watch a video (on decent days they take their lunch outside).

1:15-4:30:  I give a spelling test to Luke, Ezekiel, and Jacob, and we do a sentence from A Sentence a Day, followed by a lesson from our reading comprehension workbook.  Then we all look at the art from the Art Page a Day calendar.
I go over writing and grammar with Jacob.
I go over writing, literature discussion, and logic with Luke & Ezekiel.
I finish up with the younger two boys (whatever work is leftover from before lunch).

On Tuesdays, the boys are gone to an all day enrichment program, and on Thursday we cut it short because we have gymnastics and piano lessons in the afternoon, followed by Judo.  We have Judo on Monday as well, so we can't really run late.  It usually takes us until 4:30 to finish up, so it is a long day, but because of our outside activities, it has to be that way right now.

Like I said, this is an example of a good day.  At some point, I'll post an example of a bad day (yesterday was a bad day--we were still schooling at 8:45.  P.M.).